2018 Holiday Gift Guide, Part 3

How’s your holiday shopping list looking as we head into the home stretch before Christmas? Still have a few gifts to get? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. In this installment of our ongoing 2018 Holiday Gift Guide, we present 11 recent Top Pick-designated products, complete with synopses, quick-reference ratings, and holiday pricing where available. In our humble opinion, any (or all) of these winning products — listed here from least to most expensive — will make for a fine gift to give — or get. Happy shopping!

If you think audiophile sound quality is beyond the reach of headphones that cost a hundred and fifty bucks, think again. Sennheiser has made all the right choices with its new HD 569, featuring a rugged plastic design with black suede accents, super comfortable memory-foam earpads, and two cables — a 10-footer for home use and a 4-footer with an in-line remote/microphone and minijack for use with a phone. Impressed with its sweet tone and neutral sound, headphone maven Steve Guttenberg wrote: “Don’t underestimate the HD 569; this is an audiophile-oriented design. That much was clear when I spent a few hours spellbound listening to Vladimir Horowitz CDs…The HD 569 was a faithful messenger of this music.”

You’ll be hard pressed to find a $300 soundbar that looks and sounds as good as Polk’s Command Bar, the second product to receive our new Top Value designation. The svelte Bar is brimming with features — from Bluetooth streaming and built-in Dolby Digital and DTS surround processing to four preset listening modes, 4K/HDR-compliant HDMI 2.0a inputs, and Alexa voice control. Calling the Command Bar “surprisingly authoritative,” reviewer Rob Sabin said it boasts “serious chops and…over delivers on features and performance. I don’t hesitate to recommend it.”

AT A GLANCEPlus
Alexa voice control
Flexible connectivity
Good sound quality
Great value
Minus
No multiroom music functions

In a world littered with mediocre Bluetooth speakers, Kanto’s SYD distinguishes itself as a stellar performer that delivers rich, powerful sound from a rock-solid enclosure that’s the width of a standard-size audio component. Best of all, it does so at an eminently reasonable price. Reviewer Bob Ankosko was impressed: “I was blown away by the intimacy, clarity and depth of Holly Cole and her jazz quartet performing “Larger Than Life” from 2007’s Holly Cole) — and that’s just one example of many. Quite an accomplishment for such as small speaker.”

AT A GLANCEPlus
Excellent sound quality
Compact and well-built
Easy to set up and use
Great value

It’s not much to look at but the Sonos Beam delivers impressive sound quality and can be easily integrated into a Sonos multiroom music system without breaking the bank. At its best in moderate-sized rooms, the soundbar is remarkably compact and equipped with Sonos’ awesome Trueplay auto-room-correction processing and Alexa voice control. Reviewer Rob Sabin wrote: “I found it unfailingly pleasant on pretty much any content I tried, both music and movies, and was consistently impressed with just how much high-quality sound it put out given its size and price.” All in all, a smart value.

AT A GLANCEPlus
Affordable price
Alexa voice control
Links with other Sonos speakers
Minus
More optimized for TV sound than music
Requires HDMI ARC for voice control of TV